Using cross-country data for about 70 countries and regional data for about 180 African provinces, we show that competition between Protestant and Catholic missionaries increased schooling in former colonies. Our evidence implies that Protestant missionaries increased schooling in Catholic...

This paper shows that historical missionary activity has had a persistent effect on schooling outcomes, and contributed to a reversal of fortunes wherein historically richer ethnic groups are poorer today. Combining contemporary individual-level data with a newly constructed dataset on mission...

This paper studies the longevity of historical legacies in the context of the formation of human capital. The Partitions of Poland (1772-1918) represent a natural experiment that instilled Poland with three different legacies of education, resulting in sharp differences in human capital among...

We provide evidence that economic circumstances are a key intermediating variable for understanding the relationship between schooling and political protest. Using the World Values Survey, we find that individuals with higher levels of schooling, but whose income outcomes fall short of that...

We investigate how the link between individual schooling and political participation is affected by country characteristics. We introduce a focus on a set of variables-namely factor endowments-which in uence the relative productivity of human capital in political versus production activities....

Many empirical works suggest that education has a positive effect on earnings not only because it raises human capital but also because it functions as a signal when employers have incomplete information on employees' skills. The signaling role could have important consequences on the dynamics...

We examine several hypotheses regarding the determinants and implications of political protest, motivated by the wave of popular uprisings in Arab countries starting in late 2010. We draw attention to one of the most fundamental correlates of political activity identied in the literature, namely...

We investigate how the link between individual schooling and political participation is affected by country characteristics. We introduce a focus on a set of variables - namely factor endowments - which influence the relative productivity of human capital in political versus production...

We propose, in this paper, a novel approach to modelling education and human capital formation in a computable general equilibrium model. Rather than adopting microeconomic-based assumptions of human capital formation, the method is based on an empirical relationship between labor force...